


A Little More Light

by Trogdor19



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24154135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trogdor19/pseuds/Trogdor19
Summary: After the finale, Kiara has to sort out her complicated feelings for two very special guys: Pope and JJ. Friendship, romance, and hurt/comfort abound. With a special appearance by The Hot Tub. (Jiara all the way!)
Relationships: JJ & Kiara (Outer Banks)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 141





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Pogues for Life

The sea had always felt like a friend to Kiara. Lifting her surfboard, offering up fish, embracing her as she swam. It had been days, maybe weeks now, since the storm that took John B and Sarah, and the sea didn’t look so friendly these days. It lurked like a consequence. A reminder. And on an island, the ocean lay around every corner.

They were all trying to adjust but having them disappear like that, so fast, it just didn’t feel real. That two people could blink out with so little ceremony. It must have been how John B felt, after his father was lost at sea. Unfinished. Doubting. Like it could never quite be true.

Maybe that’s why Kiara didn’t feel right, inside. She wished that was all of it.

For everything that had changed, though, Kiara still always knew where to find Pope.

Not that he was always in the same place. His dad had him hopping all over the island and to the mainland for various errands. Pope was the machinery behind the curtain that made his dad look like a wizard to all the Kooks who needed him to work his procurement magic. But Pope’s tracks always circled back to the same places: the Chateau, the marina, the back of his dad’s old pickup where he’d sprawl during slow times and pore over textbooks and academic journals he got for free from inter-library loan. Carefully brushing the windblown flakes of rust off each page before he turned it, leaving nothing of himself behind.

Now, she walked up the beach to the dock, waiting for him to return from his errand. She could already see the prow of his boat slicing through the water and she slipped her sunglasses up onto her head to watch him approach. Her stomach was uneasy, and she stretched a smile onto her lips to cover it. It was always uneasy, these days.

Pope cut the engine at just the right moment to let it sink onto its own wake like a cushion, finessing the boat up to the landing like nobody but a Pogue from the Cut would. No Kook would notice the slight scuff in the clear coat you got when you hit the dock bumpers too fast. Pope smiled when he saw her, a quick flash of teeth that faded guiltily before it really took hold. Kiara slipped one foot out of her flip flop and rubbed it against her opposite leg, brushing away the sand. But when she put it back in her shoe it still grated.

Pope tossed her the rope and she tied it off, the clove hitches looping naturally onto the cleat. He stepped onto the dock and clapped her on the shoulder in greeting, then hesitated and leaned in, daring a quick kiss to her mouth. Her stomach flipped over, uneasy woken to unrest by their awkwardness. Pogues were reckless and exuberant, often foolhardy, but never hesitant. She caught his arm and pressed her lips to his, determinately. One second, two, wondering how long a kiss was supposed to last. If she was supposed to move her mouth more or if that was a night time thing, not for the day. Kissing felt like an alien thing her body hadn’t quite mastered.

When she pulled away, he smiled at her, but the self-consciousness was still lurking in his eyes like a question and she sighed.

His face fell. “Look…”

“I just—” she said at the same time.

He broke off and gestured for her to go first.

“I kiss you and sometimes I…but I mean everything feels wrong right now. So I don’t know.”

“You’d know,” Pope said quietly. “Even right now, with everything going on. If there was something to know, you’d already know it.”

Pain lanced through her belly. She couldn’t see him cry again. _Please don’t let him cry again._ She reached past her frustration and tried to figure out how to do better this time, because she’d kissed him. And last time, she hadn’t tried to explain, not really.

“I think that you think I don’t feel anything for you, and that’s not it at all,” she said, looking up at him. His face was so familiar she could almost look straight through the handsome as if it wasn’t even there. But it was, and it wasn’t even that she couldn’t see Pope that way. She could. She could still see the strength flexing in his muscles when he jumped in front of her and went after Rafe. She could see the way his mouth curved in a way that was almost sensual, when he solved a particularly hard math problem.

“I love you, Pope.” She said it plainly, no qualifiers, hoping he’d listen. “And when you took off because of me, I hated it. But I…I don’t know.”

He shrugged. He didn’t look surprised. But then, Pope rarely did. “No Pogue on Pogue macking,” he said. “Maybe that’s why. It gets all mixed up. It’s not as simple as if we just met.”

“It’s not like I’ve never thought of it. I mean, look at you.” She gestured. “All of you. The summer when JJ grew those abs, or when you take off that hat and that _jawline_ of yours comes into focus, and I catch myself looking…”

His head came up and he focused again, and she almost laughed at how easy it was to capture a boy’s attention by telling him how hot he was. But her stomach was still too knotted to laugh, even at irony.

“Sometimes you’ll grab my hand,” she said, the confession rushing out that she’d never had anyone to talk to about, “or John B will give me that shy little smile of his and I’ll get a tingle like, _yeah_. If you were just boys, I’d want to see what it was like. Kissing you. Touching you. Maybe even fooling around a little. But I know if I did, if I picked just one of you…”

The wind blew a strand of her hair across her face and she scooped it back over her shoulder, staring out at the incoming tide. After a long breath, she looked back at Pope, who was still there. Just listening. Looking at him, she loved him so much it almost hurt and she couldn’t figure out how people sorted it out, loving like a brother versus a friend versus somebody who sometimes drove you batshit crazy and did _dumb_ stuff but was also kind of gorgeous and okay, a little bit ripped.

“I just want you in my life,” she said on the whoosh of an exhale. “People date and they break up and they betray each other but Pogues are forever. Even the year I took off on you guys for Sarah and the Kooks. The first thing that happened, when I finally got up the guts to come crawling back, was that JJ offered me a beer. Didn’t ask for an apology or anything. Never held a grudge.” She let her gesturing hand fall to her side, the calling of the sea birds suddenly loud in the silence between them. “Could you have done that if you loved me?”

“We all love you.” He started to fidget a little, shifting his weight and turning to check on the boat. “It’s why we didn’t care why you came back. We just wanted you here. And maybe it’s wrong of me to want more, just for me.” He leaned down to tighten the already-tight rope on its cleat, then shrugged one shoulder like he did when he was about to say something really important. “I think, when I lost my merit scholarship, it was the one thing that set me apart and part of me wanted to feel special again.” His gaze came back to hers, his dark eyes warm. “If I was the only one you looked at like that…there’s nothing better this side of the cut than you, Kie.”

“There is,” she said firmly. “There’s _us_.”

She bumped him with her shoulder. “What do you say? Still friends?”

“Pogues for life,” he affirmed. “No matter what. Though for the record, kissing you was not terrible.”

She fought a smile, forced it back to seriousness. “And Pope? That scholarship wasn’t what made you special. With a brain like yours, there’s never going to be just one chance, just one scholarship. Being the kind of person who could win something like that, that’s what makes you special. And nobody can take that away from you.” She shoved him with one bare foot. “Long as you don’t burn up all those big brain cells smoking out with JJ.”

He snorted and hung his head. “Yeah, yeah.”

“We need you,” she said softly. “Who else would bag out on their life’s dream to sprint across the island in dress shoes, all for us?”

He held out a fist and bumped her knuckles lightly and relief washed through her, easing her stomach. “Pogues for life. Unless it means running in dress shoes again. Those things are sweaty as _hell_.”

She smiled and for a second, just for a second, everything in her world felt right again. And then she thought of JJ.


	2. A Little More Light

Chapter 2: A Little More Light

The figure out on the end of the dock was slim, the torn-out sleeves of his tank top hanging off his broad shoulders like the last torn wisps of a cape. The light skimmed gold and orange across the glimmering surface of the water and she squinted against the glare as she came up the dock. She ignored the Jet Ski that hadn’t been tied there this morning. She’d drive it back to the marina once it got full dark, and hopefully the rightful owner wouldn’t have missed it yet.

It had been the memory of the look on JJ’s face that had drawn her here. When she’d been crying in her mother’s arms, and Pope had been surrounded by his family, and JJ’d taken a step back. Like now that his best friend was gone, his place was alone. It’s how she knew he’d still be here, crashing at the Chateau. He hadn’t said, but she was pretty sure he hadn’t been back to his dad’s house since they stole the keys to the boat and he came out of the house unbruised but looking sicker than when he went in. Hell, for all she knew, his dad hadn’t even sobered up enough to realize that the Phantom was gone.

Kiara hopped over the empty space on the dock where the last storm had ripped another board out. Without John B to patch it all back together, the Chateau was starting to show as many holes and empty places as the three of them.

She dropped down next to JJ, inhaling out of habit, but he didn’t smell like that delicious cologne he’d lifted from the mainland department store last year. The one she always teased him about bathing in. Today it was only sweat, and a little exhaust from joyriding that stolen Jet Ski. She’d never admit it, because she’d never hear the end of it, but she liked the smell of JJ’s sweat better than the other boys’. Wasn’t sure why it didn’t get musty like John B’s or thick like Pope’s. It just smelled right somehow.

His long flop of hair blew across his forehead, but he didn’t look up as she gripped the edge of the dock, her hand less than half a board’s width away from his.

“You break up with Pope?”

“Fuck you, JJ.”

He smirked, his lips twisting but the crinkles not spreading all the way up to his eyes. “You did, though, didn’t you?” He cast her a look, the open, honest kind he never gave her when anybody was looking. “I saw you when you kissed him.”

“Who’d you steal that Jet Ski from?” she asked, changing the subject.

“It followed me home, ma. Can’t I keep it?”

“Great time to be stealing stuff, with SBI still crawling all over the island.”

“What are they going to do to me? Take away my birthday? I can barely remember when it is anyway.” His voice had gone black, singed around the edges like a fire had roared through.

“September 28th.” She ducked under his arm, the curve of his elbow hooking over her shoulder like it knew its place, even as its owner dodged her a surprised glance. “I wasn’t trying to mess with Pope’s head. I think we all just…needed something.”

“Like a little D to make you forget about the B?”

The joke made her throat hurt. Must have done the same to him, because his deliberately light voice rasped on the way out. He didn’t even smell like booze, and when JJ was too depressed to drink beer, they were really in a bad place.

“Pope’s okay,” she said, answering the question JJ was really asking. “We talked.”

His arm was warm around her shoulder and she didn’t move away, even when she felt the sting of a mosquito biting the back of her neck. She watched the sun, sinking toward the sea, and she waited for it to be swallowed up by the bottomless ocean, just like it had devoured her friends.

JJ’s ribs expanded under a breath, pressing into her side, and she thought of all the times she’d almost kissed him. Of how many Jet Skis he might steal if it’d been him she had her five-minute fling with. Of the ridiculous, exuberant, misguided gestures he might throw himself into if their fling stretched to ten minutes, or fifteen.

The corner of her mouth tipped up. “What would happen if I fell for one of you guys for real?”

“Making out,” JJ said without hesitation. “Lots and lots of making out.”

She laughed, his arm squeezing lightly around her shoulders.

“It would have been John B,” JJ said, and he sounded more like himself than he had since the storm. “If he’d made it. He was the best of us. Heart of gold and all that. That’s what you deserve, our little Queen of Lost Baby Turtles and Saved Whales.”

She turned her head and he was smiling, his cheekbones high and eyes clear as he looked out at the sea.

_That’s what you deserve._

She kissed him. Part of her didn’t even realize she was doing it until the scrape on his lip rasped over hers and she lost her breath. Her heartbeat twirled up, up, up so fast she couldn’t follow and she swayed on the edge of the dock, her normal unbreakable balance all gone in an instant.

He gasped for breath, breaking the kiss. “Whoa, Ki!”

She fought a jerk of frustration. She wasn’t done yet. There had been a _thing_ and had that been her imagination or had there been some kind of tingle, something extra when she kissed him that—

“Shut up, JJ.”

She grabbed him by the tank top and kissed him harder, and oh WOW there it was and it was bigger this time. She could feel his chest acutely and realized her nipples had pebbled hard under her bikini top and tank top and they were _so_ sensitive and his chest was harder than she remembered from their last wrestling match on the floor of the—

“Okay but—” he gasped out between kisses, his eyes wide. “Um, I mean should we be—”

“Shut _up_ , JJ,” she hissed, pushing him flat on the dock and starting to follow him down.

A sound escaped him, like the start of a whimper quickly smothered and she flinched, remembering the blooms of bruises across his ribs. Darker in color than she’d ever seen bruises. Like they went deeper than most.

Her hands went from gripping his shirt to cupping his face, fluttering ineffectually. “Sorry, shit, I forgot and I didn’t mean to—”

He laughed, the flash of his grin bright and happy, like she’d almost forgotten he could look. “C’mon, girl. I can’t feel a thing above my waist right now, are you kidding?”

She rolled her eyes at his crudeness and laughed. Classic JJ. The thought made her pause. She’d just kissed _JJ_. She sagged to the dock, her legs folding to the side as she tried to catch her breath. What the hell was she thinking, risking her boys like this when she only had two of them left? When their group was so fragile. She’d just forgotten, for a second, that he was a Pogue. Or maybe remembered, if she was being honest with herself, because she couldn’t stand to kiss anybody else. Not anybody that didn’t have the same anchor of pain living in their chest, the regret whispering in their every dream and thought, waiting with claws poised for the rare moment when she’d forget for an instant that they were gone. And then someone would laugh like Sarah, or lope by on the beach with a long, easy stride like John B’s after his latest growth spurt. And she’d remember she was never going to have another summer like this one, with all of them together. Not ever.

She turned away and looked back over the water, hugging her knees.

When John B kissed her, her heart had kicked up, like it was her first time at Spin the Bottle. A little flicker of awareness like oh yes, he’s a boy and you’re a girl and he’s starting to grow out of all that gangly and get…pretty. Especially around the eyes. When she kissed Pope, there was a desperation to it. Like she wanted to remember when they were the anchor of the group, their brains reminding the others when to stop and think. She wanted to feel that love she’d seen in his eyes when he’d given her his confession. But she couldn’t feel it past the aching thump of her own heart. All she could feel was how very, very much she didn’t want to lose any of them.

And all of that had burned away in an instant when her lips had touched JJ’s bruised, chapped ones.

JJ sat up, hooking his hard chin over her shoulder like he had when he was younger and he wanted her attention. 

“We can forget it, you know.” His voice was low, almost too soft for a rumble. “What we just did. I know with losing John B, we’re all a little crazy right now. Nothing has to change, I promise.”

She hadn’t known anything for sure before this moment but the jolt of fear at his words woke her right up. She’d been acting on impulse, then chasing that little sparkle of extra feeling to see if it had been real. And then going back for more because it felt _good._ But for everything she’d just told Pope about how it wasn’t worth it, that she wanted them all in her life more than she wanted to play Seven Minutes in Heaven with any one of them…now she knew that was a lie. She wanted something that put a kink in her chest and the light back in JJ’s face. She wanted it with the ferocious single-mindedness with which she’d known her own mind since she was a child. And she knew if she was going to get it, subtle wasn’t going to do the trick. Not with JJ. 

She slid her hand right down his shorts, squeezing the line of his erection through his threadbare underwear. “Can you forget this?” And because that fear was still pounding through her, whispering that maybe he wanted to forget her, she leaned forward and kissed him again, fiercely. “And this?”

“Whoa, girl.” All the rumble was back in his voice and it quaked like gravel inside a bass drum. But he didn’t say it like he meant slow down. He said it like he meant _damn._ He said it like he meant _yes._

He licked his lips, his gaze dropping to her mouth.

And now that she wasn’t just brazening it out, she _felt_ him. In her palm, flexing thicker at her touch. He was still hard, because of course he was. Swim trunks didn’t hide much, and so it was no secret to anyone on the island that JJ spent 75% of his waking hours with a boner. But he’d never been hard for her. Or if he had, she hadn’t known it quite so intimately as she knew it now. She went suddenly shy. But she hadn’t kept up with the boys for this long by backing down, so instead of retreating, she gave him a long, slow stroke.

Her body reacted, rippling awareness all down her legs like she was the one being caressed and she had to press her teeth together so she wouldn’t pant.

“Unnggg,” JJ groaned, his teeth pressed together, too.

She swallowed. “JJ, I think I…”

“Oh, I _definitely_.”

She laughed, the tension in her chest breaking. She had no idea what she’d even been about to say, how she could encapsulate the _oh god, did you feel that, is this really happening_ doing somersaults underneath her solar plexus. But somehow, she could hear how he was answering everything she didn’t know how to ask.

“And if you don’t take your hand out of my pants,” he warned, “I think I’m gonna fall in love.”

She snorted into laughter.

“Oh, I’m serious,” he boasted, craning his head to try to see her as she collapsed forward, laughing against his chest. “I’m about to propose marriage right here, right now.”

Somehow in the midst of her laughter, her hand had slipped out of his shorts, and her head had found that place on his shoulder where she slept sometimes when he barged into the hammock after she’d totally already claimed it. They just felt like _them_ again. Only with a warmth in her chest that hadn’t been there before, and a crazy smile tugging at her lips, and a tingle in her palm where it lay over the line of his abs.

“Kie,” he said, his breath stirring the tiny hairs at the crown of her head. “Do you really want…”

She lifted her head. “I really want.”

He touched her chin, leaning in slow and watching her warily, like he expected her to laugh in his face for falling for the joke. She held very still and when he blinked, the vulnerability was back in his eyes. That crack in his bravado she’d seen so clearly when she’d stopped the car in front of his dad’s house.

He swallowed. And then his lips were brushing hers and she let him take it slow, feeling her out like he wanted to be sure, sure, _sure_ that it was real. That she was letting him do this. That she wanted _him_ to do this. 

She tried to let him lead, but her hand came up and cupped the back of his neck, unable to resist holding him, at least a little. He made that sound again, that cut-off whimper as if he was in pain, and her chest twanged. Then his tongue swept over hers and it was rough and almost too physical. Like the way he always used to get carried away with the horseplay with her until she yelped that one day, shouting at him and stomping off home before he could see her tears. Then he’d brought her candy every day for a week, and a new backpack she made him return because it still had the ink tag from the marina store on it, underneath a hibiscus-print bandanna he’d knotted crookedly on to hide it.

But now, his raw physicality thrilled something in her and her hand balled in his shirt, pulling tight as he came down over her. The boards of the dock were scratchy against her back as he licked his way into her mouth, and this was deeper than she’d ever been kissed. She wasn’t sure she liked it, and then she _really_ liked it. And then she had to stop herself from digging her nails into the skin of his back, and he had to stop himself from thrusting against her hip, and they both laughed, husky but not quite pulling apart, when they realized they were doing it.

“Fuck,” JJ chuckled, leaning his forehead against hers. “John B’s never gonna…” and then his voice died and something in her withered like a flower that had already stolen as much time in the sun as it was ever going to get. JJ hung his head, planting his hands wide to either side of her and panting like it was hard to breathe with the weight of his ribs crushing in on his lungs. She knew the feeling.

Kiara brushed his hair back from his forehead and pushed a kiss against his cheek. “C’mon.” She scooted out from beneath him and grabbed his hand, jerking her bikini top straight where it had gotten tangled under her shirt. “Let’s get in the Cat’s Ass.”

He almost laughed at his nickname for the hot tub, but it stuck somewhere on the way out and came out sounding more like a cough. But his hand tightened in hers as they approached the gap where the board was missing, and he gave her a tug like she might forget to hop over it. “Careful.”

She gave him the “Be serious” look and he gave her the “sorrynotsorry” look and it almost put the light back in his eyes, and then she felt twice as bad for wanting JJ to smile when John B never could again.

She ducked her head so he wouldn’t see her eyes starting to water—she hated the boys to see her cry—and busied herself tugging the cover off the hot tub. One of the clasps had broken in the wind of the last storm and she picked leaves out of the water as JJ jogged up to the house.

The delivery guys had somehow accidentally placed the hot tub right on top of her favorite spot in the Chateau’s tree. Where the branches spurled out just right to make you feel embraced, and quiet. Safe.

It was the exact spot she always used to sit, sketching in her journal or planning out fundraisers on her phone. But now the hot tub was there, the one JJ had gotten for his friends—his family, he’d said.

Just as she thought the word, the Christmas lights blinked on. There were a bunch of strings of them that he’d wound round and round the branches until the tree was alive with color. It was weird to see electricity work without the roar of the generators, now that the power was back on. Too quiet, almost. She looked up as JJ jogged back toward her, stumbling as he tried to pull off his shirt before he made it all the way there.

“It’s not even dark yet,” she pointed out, shimmying out of her shorts and whipping off her shirt without letting herself look at him. It was no big deal. JJ had seen her in a bikini like a billion times. “Why’d you turn on the lights?”

He didn’t even pretend not to stare, his eyes traveling over the curves of her body in a way that made her stand a little straighter, that didn’t make her want to cross her arms the way she usually did when it was one of the pastel-polo’ed idiots from the Figure 8 doing the looking. She was pointedly not looking, but her peripheral vision informed her that JJ’s shorts were still thin, and he was still hard. Quite a bit harder than he had been, if memory served.

She turned and stepped into the hot tub and he joined her with a splash, crossing the tub with a single easy pull of his arms and taking his place next to her. The heat of the hot tub was already sinking into her skin, unwinding the tension in her bones.

“These days, a little more light can’t hurt,” he murmured, and bent his head to chance a kiss to her hair.

“Yeah.” She laid her head on his shoulder, hoping he’d do it again. “A little more light can’t hurt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Still toying with the idea of adding more chapters to this one. I have a few ideas for a chapter where JJ and Kiara break the news to Pope that they're dating. Let me know what you'd like to see!


	3. Peace Offering

**Chapter 3: Peace Offering**

Kiara climbed the stairs, tugging at her shirt. It was her favorite deep blue tank top, with the water mark of turtles along the hem. She’d changed her clothes three times before coming over here, which annoyed her. Since when did she do anything but throw on the top thing in the drawer when she was hanging out with the other Pogues?

But today was important.

Pope’s bedroom door was open but she knocked anyway, lingering in the opening like there was still time to flee. Hell, crawling into that snake-ridden Redfield tomb had been easier than this.

“Come in,” he said, turning his head toward her but his eyes still caught on the screen of his laptop. She could see about fifty browser windows open, the first one showing scholarship information. That was a good sign, she told herself.

“Hey, I, uh, brought you something.”

“Oh!” He startled at the sound of her voice, clattering out of his chair and just catching it before it tipped over. “Hey, uh, hi. Yeah, come in.” He seemed to realize what he was doing and sat back down, then tugged at his hat. Crossed his arms. Uncrossed them and minimized the browser window, then the next one behind it, then seemed to realize there was no point and just shoved the laptop away. “What’s up?”

The folder curled her in her fingers and she lifted it a little higher, waggling it with a rueful smile that felt tight on her face. They’d seen each other here and there since The Talk, even been surfing once. But the words that passed between them were too casual, too sparse to be real. And then for the last week, she’d all but disappeared, working fervently on the project she was holding in her hand now.

Well, disappeared except for JJ climbing in her window late at night, stifling her giggles into her hand as he growled kisses into her neck. The grind of sand against her back when they’d walked on the beach late at night and ended up kissing so feverishly they tumbled onto the ground and just sort of…stayed there.

She cleared her throat, hoping the heat climbing up her throat didn’t show. Instead of trying the small talk they seemed incapable of making these days, she snatched the top sheet of paper out of the folder and pushed it at him.

“What is—” His eyes narrowed as he read the legal language. “The Royal Merchant? The—” His hat brim rose with his eyebrows and his chin jerked up. “Kie, is this what I think it is?”

“The deed to the Royal Merchant, or as much of a title of ownership as maritime salvage law allows,” she confirmed, perching on his bed, and then feeling weird about it. “I brought the drone footage and the coordinates to a lawyer, who agreed to work for a much more reasonable fee once I made it clear the gold was gone.”

“But what’s the point, if the gold is gone? I mean—I’m sorry, this is a great gift but why would you…”

“The gold is gone, but the ship is still there. Probably a few artifacts of historical significance. The Royal Merchant is one of the most famous wrecks of all time. The language is a little thick, but I think you’re even allowed to charge some fee for people who want to study the wreck for academic reasons. Should make you some decent money. Not four hundred mill kind of money, but car money. Textbook money.” She swallowed. “I hope you don’t mind I had them put it jointly to you and JJ.”

“Of course not but Kie, what about you? You were as much of a part of this as any of us and John B—”

“John B doesn’t need it anymore,” she said through a tight throat. Saying his name always hurt, every time. “And I’m okay. I’m going to inherit the Wreck and it does fine. Even after I turn it into a sustainable seafood showcase and switch it to a nonprofit to give the surplus to ocean sanctuaries, I’ll make a good living. This is yours, Pope. You and JJ’s.”

“Yeah, uh.” He looked down, rubbing his hand over the top of his hat. She knew they hadn’t talked much since she and Pope had gone their separate ways, because JJ had been spending most of his time with her. She made him promise to let her tell Pope about them in her own way, and JJ was pretty used to telling Pope everything, so he was avoiding him instead of having to lie. Which was probably what Pope was thinking about right now. But that was all part of her plan. It wasn’t a dead boat stranded in the marsh—it was much more long-term than that, their need to be in each other’s lives and cooperating, for the money they both desperately needed.

Well, money that Pope wouldn’t need quite as much, here in a minute.

She took out the second piece of paper and passed it over without a word.

“Dear Mr. Heyward,” he mumbled as he read to himself. “We are pleased to award you the…” He looked up again, his eyes as wide as a bolting horse. “The merit scholarship.”

He said it in the breathy, awed undertone most people used to say “The Virgin Mary” and despite the tension winding ever tighter around her ribs, she found herself smiling. “ _Your_ merit scholarship. You did it, Pope. You’re going to get off this island, just like you wanted.”

“But how—I mean, I ran out of the interview.” He paused, staring at her. “Like a crazy person. There’s no way they’d give it to me after that.”

“Turns out they’re pretty big fans of the Royal Merchant. Amateur historians, if you will. Well, and one real historian. You told them in your interview that you found it, but you didn’t provide proof, so they kind of thought you were nuts. I took them the drone footage, the coordinates, and your salvage claim and they were…pretty darn impressed.” She smiled. She’d wanted to give him the surprise herself to cushion the blow of what came next, but when she’d seen their faces…she’d almost wished she’d brought Pope along so he could have enjoyed a well-deserved gloat.

“But the gold is gone,” he said again.

She laughed. “Pope, they’re academics. They want to study the Royal Merchant, not spend it.”

He looked down at the papers in his hand, back at her. “I…thank you. I just…thank you so much, Kie.” He stopped, and she felt herself tensing.

“What?”

“I guess I just…why didn’t you tell me you were doing all this? It’s amazing, it’s incredible, it’s going to change my whole life. But why’d you do it like this, all on your own?”

Kiara felt like a horrible person. “I wanted to do something nice for you,” she squeaked out.

His eyes narrowed. Her hands started to wring at each other.

“Well it is,” he said. “Really nice. I don’t even know how to repay you for this. The scholarship and—are you sure you don’t want a share of the salvage title? That feels wrong, to leave you out of it.”

She had to say it. Her heart rose in her throat like an overfilled balloon and she bit her lip. “Could you maybe…do me a favor?”

He stared at her. “Obviously.”

“Maybe, sort of, somehow promise to not hate me forever?” Her toes squirmed in her flip flips, and sand filtered out onto his carpet.

“What—” He broke off, his face changing. He turned away, flopping backwards onto his bed so his weight bounced her almost all the way off it. “Ugh,” he said. “Can’t you guys wait and just get together after I leave for college? So at least I can _pretend_ it’s not about you liking JJ better than me?”

Of course he’d guessed. Fear battled with relief in her chest. He wasn’t shouting. That had to be a good sign. If anything, he sounded…resigned.

She turned and crawled across the bed to him, giving him her best, most coaxing smile. _Please, please don’t hate me._ “I don’t like him better than you, Pope. I like him…different than you.”

“Macking different,” he muttered.

She looked down, blushing as the flutters woke back up in her chest at the thought of kissing JJ. God, they were embarrassing. “Maybe.”

Pope covered his face with his hands.

Her blush disappeared and she reached for his arm. “Are you mad? You’re mad, aren’t you?”

“What did you think I’d be, Kiara? You kissed me like five minutes ago, and now you’re trying to bribe me to forget that you moved on so fast your head’s probably still spinning. Who kissed who, huh?” He propped himself up on his elbows, glaring at her with those intelligent eyes of his like laser beams, carving the truth out of her heart. “Did JJ kiss you first? Or did you kiss him? What are you doing, just trying us all on like shoes to see which ones you want to keep?”

“That’s not fair—”

The window rattled and they both jumped as JJ’s grinning face popped up in the pane and he waved. “Yoo hoo!”

Pope groaned and heaved himself off the bed to unlatch the window. “Dude, I told you to stop climbing up there. You’re kicking the shingles loose.”

JJ folded his long body in through the window, wiggling when his back caught against the frame. “Yeah, but if I came through the front door, I couldn’t very well listen in to see how things were going in here, could I?”

“JJ!” Kiara yelped. “Let me handle this, okay? You promised.”

“Nah way, Kie. You were crashing and burning in here.” He slung his arm around his friend. “Besides, Pope loves me best. I knew you couldn’t pull this off without me.”

Pope slapped his arm off and turned to glare. “Dude, you knew I liked her.”

“Bro, you knew _I_ liked her,” JJ shot right back.

They stared at each other for a long moment and Kiara gritted her teeth.

“I’m a better boyfriend,” Pope said, his voice dropping to a low, unhappy rumble.

“You are.” JJ ducked his head in a nod, conceding the point immediately.

“Then why didn’t you let me—”

Kiara stepped in between them and heaved them apart with a straight-armed push. “Probably because neither of you get to decide that for me. That’s my call, thank you very much. JJ, out.” She pointed to the window, then turned to her other friend. “Pope, c’mon. We didn’t mean for this to happen. And I don’t love him more than you.”

Pope laid back on the bed, staring determinately at the ceiling. “I wanna be alone.”

JJ jumped onto the bed, making the mattress bounce, and grabbed Pope in a tight koala hug with his arms and his legs, laying his head on his friend’s chest even when he tried to squirm away. “We both love you best. And you’re the smartest. I’m just the most handsome. She couldn’t help herself.”

Pope smacked him, glaring.

“See? Even you can’t keep her hands off me.”

Kiara stifled a laugh into her hand, rolling her eyes with frustration and affection all at once.

Pope was still scowling down at JJ, who was attached to his chest like a barnacle. “You gonna say it?”

“Those three little words? I did, twice, if you were paying attention. But if you want me to tell you you’re pretty…” JJ batted his eyelashes.

“You know what I mean.”

JJ sighed. “Okay, okay, you can have my good fishing pole. A good fisherman can work with any pole.”

“I hope that’s not a euphemism for something else,” Kiara put in, trying to lighten the mood. Pope ignored her.

“The restitution,” he said to JJ. “That’s what you’re going to say, isn’t it? You took a felony on your record for me. You’re both the reason I had any chance at that scholarship at all, so I can let you have this. I can’t very well argue with that, can I?”

JJ’s jaw went hard and he sat up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. _I_ sank the boat, I did the time, I’ll pay the restitution.” He shrugged. “Probably. At some point. If Barry gets around to making some more drug money for me to steal, or if I can get a decent turnaround on a gently used hot tub on Craigslist.”

Pope just stared. “Is this some reverse psychology bullshit? You want me to think you _weren’t_ going to play that card, just to make me feel even more guilty?”

JJ stood up off the bed, pulling off his hat and slamming it backwards onto his head. “That sounds like a bunch of AP class psychobabble to me. All I know is, you’re not actually pissed enough to want Kie to be unhappy. And for whatever reason, right now the girl’s crazy enough to think that what she wants is me.” He ducked his head, his voice going low and hurt. “And you know how long I’ve liked her, man.”

Kiara looked to him, wanting to reach for his hand and also not wanting to make this any harder on Pope than it had to be.

Pope exhaled, glaring at JJ. “Dammit.”

JJ lit up, his dimples appearing all in a rush as he grabbed Pope, hauling him off the bed and then up off his feet in a hug. “You can have the fishing pole. You need all the help you can get, anyway.”

“Ugh, let’s just never talk about it again.” Pope sagged tiredly into the hug as JJ put him back on his feet.

Kiara scuffed the rug with her toe, looking hopeful. “So…friends?”

“We were never not friends,” Pope said wearily. “Now get out of here so I can sulk about JJ being a better kisser than me.”

“I think you mean, start looking online for roommates at your new college, since you now have a full ride.” She kissed him on the cheek, unable to hold back her smile. “You’re the best person.”

“I seriously fucking am, right now.” Pope pulled off his hat and pointed it at her. “And don’t you forget it. Now scram.”

JJ waited until they were past the doorway before slinging an arm around her waist and giving her that damn panty-heating, heart-melting grin of his, totally unrepentant in its own beauty. “I told you Pope loved me best.”

* * *

_Author's Note: I've got 2 more fics coming right up for this fandom, so keep your eye on my page! And if you have recs for great authors in this fandom, please drop me a note, I'm looking for reading material!_

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: Next chapter is all JJ, so bookmark this and stick around, friends! 
> 
> Also, I've written fanfic for 6 fandoms, over 8 years, and this is the first time I've started writing fic in S1, so this show is really something special!


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